Posted 8 months ago on July 19, 2014, 4:37 p.m. EST by flip
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Israel’s military assault on Gaza has so far killed over 200 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,500. Nearly 80% of these casualties have been civilians. One Israeli has been killed by a mortar shell from Hamas rocket attacks, along with 20 wounded.

So far, around 1,400 Palestinian homes have been completely destroyed, damaged or left uninhabitable, including health facilities and ambulances. According to the Red Cross, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) has conducted “repeated bombings of water infrastructure” leaving “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians in Gaza without water for days.

On the pretext that Hamas has rejected Egypt’s proposed ceasefire, Israel is escalating Operation Protective Edge with plans for intensified airstrikes. Now IT has launched its much-vaunted ground invasion, likely designed to collapse Gaza’s civilian infrastructure — on Tuesday, the IDF called on residents of eastern and northern Gaza — some 100,000 people — to evacuate their homes.

The only conceivable objective of this total war on Gazan society is the forced displacement and expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes.

A hint at Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s game-plan was revealed on day four of the military operation in a press conference. Speaking in Hebrew, Netanyahu made explicitly clear that he “could never, ever,countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank.” While he is known to have previously indicated he is opposed to a single bi-national Israeli state which would include Palestinians, favouring instead a unilateral “separation” from the Palestinians, he now “made explicit that this could not extend to full Palestinian sovereignty.”

“There cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”

As observed by David Horovitz, founding editor of the Times of Israel: “Not relinquishing security control west of the Jordan, it should be emphasised, means not giving a Palestinian entity full sovereignty there. It means not acceding to Mahmoud Abbas’s demands, to Barack Obama’s demands, to the international community’s demands. This is not merely demanding a demilitarised Palestine… That sentence, quite simply, spells the end to the notion of Netanyahu consenting to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

In other word, Netanyahu’s vision is to consolidate Israel’s control over “Judaea and Samaria” in the name of “security.”

Little has changed. In his 1995 book, A Place Under the Sun, Netanyahu described a Palestinian state as a danger to Zionism, and declared his belief in the Jewish right to a state that would not just incorporate the land of historic Palestine, but even potentially incorporate other Arab countries: “Jordan, for example, is part of the lands that constitute greater Israel,” he said.

“Separation” in this context does not mean a two-state solution at all. It means the opposite — a greater Israel without Palestinians.

To be sure, this mentality is not confined to the Israeli right. Earlier this year, the Knesset voted down the so-called ‘two-state solution’ bill that would have prohibited Israel from unilaterally annexing land in the West Bank and Gaza, only permitting land annexation with Palestinian approval in the context of a peace agreement leading to two states.

Israeli leaders, it seems, are neither interested in peace, nor a two-state solution. According to US Middle East envoy Martin Indyk, Israel had deliberately “sabotaged” the peace talks by refusing to even consider a freeze on expanded settlement activity. Netanyahu, he said, “would not yield an inch” for peace. Although he blamed both sides for their intransigence in negotiations, he pointed out that Israel’s pro-settlement stance torpedoed negotiations on purpose.

That is why Operation Protective Edge has deliberately targeted civilian and civilian infrastructure. This is not simply a war on Hamas. It is a war on the very concept of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state.

Unfortunately, by continuing its indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel, Hamas has continued to prove itself as much of an enemy to the Palestinian people as the IDF. Time and time again Hamas’ rockets have served to play into the hands of Israel’s most militant factions in government, providing the pretext needed for escalation.

Indeed, US intelligence officials confirmed that from the late 1970s to the 80s, Israel had “directly and indirectly” financed Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) “to divide and dilute support” for the secular movement for self-determination. But there was another agenda. “The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place,” said one US government official. “Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with.”

In 2001, Times of Israel columnist Ellis Shuman reported for the Israel Insiderthat former Knesset parliamentarian Michael Kleiner, leader of the far right Herut party who has just been elected president of the Supreme Court of Netanyahu’s Likud, “suggested replacing Arafat, even if it meant the Hamas would take his place. According to Kleiner, the entire world recognises the Hamas as a terrorist organisation so Israel’s continued efforts against a radical Palestinian leadership would not be condemned.”

That year, according to Ha’aretz, Silvan Shalom — then Israeli finance minister and current minister of energy and water — told the cabinet that: “Between Hamas and Arafat, I prefer Hamas.” None of the ministers protested, notedHa’aretz. Shalom went on to describe Arafat as “a terrorist in a diplomat’s suit, while the Hamas can be hit unmercifully. Everyone will understand who we’re dealing with, he implied, and there won’t be any international protests.”

As former Times editor George Szamuely observed in New York Pressmagazine in 2002, Israel’s support for Hamas “even continued after the 1993 Oslo accords,” as suicide bombings inside Israel continued. Hamas, he remarked, “served Israel’s purpose admirably by suggesting to the American public that the conflict in the Middle East pitted democratic Israel against all-or-nothing fanatics who wanted to drive the Jews into the sea. Israel’s refusal to surrender conquered land and its continued building of settlements in violation of innumerable UN resolutions could then all be justified as perfectly reasonable responses to an implacable enemy.”

Israel has leapt on Hamas’s rejection of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire as justification to expand its war on Gaza. But the failure of the ceasefire proposal was a foregone conclusion. “We did not receive any official draft of this Egyptian proposal,” said a Hamas spokesman who complained that Cairo had not even consulted the group over the deal.

According to another senior Hamas source, Egyptian intermediaries had instead passed on secret messages to the group warning that Israel would “wipe out” one third of the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian army proceeded to aid Israel’s ensuing military attack by blowing up 29 tunnels under the country’s border with Gaza. It is therefore no surprise that Hamas believed the proposal was “not worth the ink that wrote it.”

Yet Hamas’ insistence on firing rockets into Israel plays into the hands of the Likud’s longstanding ambitions to permanently alter the ‘facts on the ground’ in Gaza through extreme force. And given the vast military disparity between Hamas and the IDF — illustrated in the casualty figures — this is not a war. Rather, it is a colonial massacre to expunge Palestinians from their ancestral homeland.

71 Comments

It's 565 Palestinians dead & 3350+ injured now [6pm EST, 21st July] in this War Of Choice by Nutty-Yahoo, with 25 Israeli dead, 2 of those are civilians. Thanx for the important forum-post and also fyi ...

Nutty-Yahoo's name translates as 'Gift Of G_d' btw but fk knows wtf kind of G*d gifted that freak on us. There's more to the War than meets the eye but Corporate MSM & The Britsh B-S'ing Corp are schtum.

3-5 people don;t like what someone is saying, in the grand scope of the internet, but it must be "bots".. hysterical.

Talk about an out of touch ego! Some nasty old bastard with a napoleon complex thinks bots have been designed to manipulate its "point total" instead of coming to the obvious reality of "people don't agree with me".. lol what a trip!

Are you contesting those casualty numbers ?! Are u aware of the 110,000+ people displaced from their homes & even if you were .. would you give a flying fk ?!! I don't give a fig what you spewed or when you spewed it & this is the 3rd 'War Of Choice' in 6 years .. go look it up because ignorance and having the attention span of a amnesiac goldfish is NOT an excuse in this day and age .. you ignorant blowhard !!!

Are you a ''PEP'' too or - are you actually far too rabid and right-wing for that ? For an explanation, see :

Have u been waiting all day for some company ?! Do you have any real world friends ?!! How about, u think about getting a dog .. instead of just barking and howling like one on this forum ?!!! Try the links.

keep it up. he is sick as is this "war??" wtf kind of war is this. it is like seeing a grown man beating a young child and calling it a fight. it is disgusting and my government is to blame - Obama - the killer of women and children all over the world.

You didn't examine the post - did you - your response was to quick to allow for that. But I do appreciate the sentiment ( right on ) - as we can not be silent while our government commits heinous crimes against humanity.

sure little shit homemade rockets against "the iron dome!' and then we have the "worlds best military" lined up against those scruffy little bastard arabs with all those weapons from the u.s. sick little shit - apologist for war and murder - and why - why are you on the side of the bully. are you also on the side of Washington in Ukraine - on the same side and Hillary Clinton and dick cheney and sam power and the killer in chief - winner of the peace prize - leader of the free world Obama??

obviously you do not know the history or are one of those who don't want to see - as in "there are none so blind as those who don't want to see" - anyway I have better things to do - any unbiased person reading our back and forth will understand the reality of the situation so I have achieved my goal here - thanks for your help but now I have better things to do - go ahead make you last silly rant and make it more clear to those reading that you are not only stupid but disturbed

nice work - you must have spent lots of time on this - now can you find some similar quotes from the israelis or maybe American neo cons or liberals? no? I think if you look you will find them. try - I can help if you like

The most Admirable Person on Earth-is-A Jew! He stands Head and Shoulders above all other men alive,including me & you,ZD ! His Name is Norman Finklestein & I counsel you to Respect that name!.LOL to Infinity.

The 'ThinkProgress' link was really very interesting above and I quote : ''In a Wall Street Journal essay published online late Monday afternoon, Thane Rosenbaum — a professor at New York University’s School of Law, who recently wrote a book entitled “Payback: The Case for Revenge” — mulls whether Palestinians in Gaza actually count as civilians. Noting Hamas’ preference for assymetrical attacks against both Israeli civilians and members of the armed forces, Rosenbaum laments the fact that Hamas operates outside the framework of international law, eschewing uniforms and open combat to hide among civilians. While this behavior is legitimately problematic and a violation of international norms, Rosenbaum’s next leap of logic is where the train comes off the rails :

''The asymmetry is complicated even further by the status of these civilians. Under such maddening circumstances, are the adults, in a legal and moral sense, actual civilians? To qualify as a civilian one has to do more than simply look the part. How you came to find yourself in such a vulnerable state matters. After all, when everyone is wearing casual street clothing, civilian status is shared widely.''

~

There is much more to consider in that article and I encourage readers to read it & make up their own minds but your rather ambiguous inclusion of it here lays you open to the charge that you too actually agree that .. '' That There Are No Palestinian Civilians'' !!! I can't be 100% sure that that is what you are saying but I suspect that that is so - and does that apply to Israeli 'civilians' too ?!! Only one step from that old Zionist canard - 'There is no such thing as The Palestinian People', right ?!

Re. Murdoch, he's far, far closer to your positions than any of mine and so I will again refer you to my previous reply (here below) which probably precipitated that part of your reply above :

I am sorry that you had your previous moniker's points frozen and that have been forced to start a new moniker btw but I applaud your perseverance in the face of provocations nevertheless. Solidarity to you.

These very terrible things you say and wish upon others are in your future and even now there may well be nobody to piss on you if you were on fire and so .. please be mindful that none of us can escape our Karma !!! So you should try to be a little calmer perhaps !! Your poor behaviour & words give real insight into your damaged brain - where there be fk all ''Zen'' and way too much ''Dog'' .. so change your ways !

You're making the mistake of confusing me with someone who gives a flying fk about what you say !!! I don't ... I just like kicking your ignorant ass sometimes !! You are a curse unto yourself and now fk off !

Your language is indicative of an abused and thus, abusive person ! You should try meditation on the word 'Zen' instead of regressing to just 'Dog' so often !! I am a fiend for the ''exclamation points'' btw .. hadn't you worked that out yet ?!!!

So One Person ; One Vote ; One State - or - The 1967 Borders and Two States ?! Your 'zero sum game approach' is just NOT working here on the forum OR in Israel / Palestine !! Have you heard of Bar Giora ; Hashomer ; Palmach ; Haganah ; Irgun ; Lehi / Stern Gang etc. & what are their parallels to Hamas ?!!!

WTF has ''FLAKESnews', Murdock'' got to do with me ?!!! Furthermore, why are you whining about other posters to me ?!! Can you now stop sending me any more - unsolicited - 'Personal Messages' please ?!

I told you before to stop sending me PM's and that I would only copy them straight to the public forum if you did ! You've also taken to 'removing' my comments (even on this very thread), just like you 'removed' my last forum-post, which was merely a video link of Bill Moyers talking to Paul Krugman about Thomas Piketty !! So can I ask u, how is this present campaign of mendacities, manipulations and mean-minded maneuvering going ?!!! Finally re. Murdoch (sic), see :

Is pandering to Likud and Democratic Party War Mongers - a requirement to be in your ''kabal'' snooz ?! Is that how the rest of us can now play happy families with : MadDog ; GoofFriday ; Wendy Squid ; Jiffy Smith ; bensdork ; midfeast ; eric-shwarz & of course you, snooz ?!! Is anyone who does not agree with you lot to be considered a bot, puppet, troll, stalker etc., or - heaven forbid .. a ''partisan'' these days ?!!!

That only shows what you really think of 'Revolutions' doesn't it ?! Ever was it thus from reactionary, 'anti-rev.' elements !! Your backyard is MY backyard btw and maybe just maybe I should be talking to my peeps in Warren, lololol !!!

You really need to stipulate your opinions of who these ''know(n) anti semites'' are - so that I may be aware of your sensibilities and possibly try not post them to you in future. We were not always so 'antipathetic' - but your lack of ANY criticisms of Likud in Israel and The Democrats in The USA imo - has driven a wedge between us .. with my help too no doubt.

We may be able to step back from impugning each others integrity and try to just limit ourselves to the relative merits of our arguments in future ... only time will tell. Finally in the interests of possible fruitful future dialogue, I'll simply ask re. Israel / Palestine and any solutions - which way shall / can it go ? One State - One Person ; One Vote - between The River Jordan and The Sea OR ... 1967 Borders as per UN Resolution 242 and a Two State Solution ?

Who's making War in Gaza ? What you say is not true or reasonable, is it ? Coming up to bed time for me but I truly believe that you and indeed anyone else will really gain from watching this short video :